Luigi (Super Smash Bros. Ultimate)

He can jump higher than his older brother, Mario. His Up Special, Super Jump Punch, will gain maximum damage and launching power when hitting the opponent right at the start. It truly is a "Special" move. He also uses his new Poltergust for his throw!

Luigi Cyclone is now invincible in its start-up frames, which could get Luigi out of combos.

Excellent punish game.

Down throw is quite versatile and can lead to various powerful combos and kill options.

Weaknesses

Light weight.

Low traction.

Depends heavily on his throws, so if he misses a grab Luigi is quite useless.

Difficult to get out of disadvantage, since he has an exploitable recovery, due to relying entirely on his double jump for diagonal recovery.

Short range, thus susceptible to projectile characters or characters with disjointed hit boxes.

Tether grab cannot grab to ledges.

Ground and air mobility are both somewhat slow.

Summary

Luigi is a powerful character who can bring characters up to high percentages or even death through his combos. He also has great punish game, because if an attack is whiffed he can follow up with either Super Jump Punch, which kills relatively early, or he can start a combo that could rack up damage quickly. He can also edge-guard decently with back-air, down-air, forward-air, down-tilt, and his grab. Luigi's tether grab has a hit-box, which means he could drop it over the stage and can provide a blockade for characters trying to recover. This also means that, while Luigi doesn't have the Luigi Cyclone gimp, he can still gimp with his tether grab. Luigi also has invincibility frames of Luigi Cyclone, which replaces neutral-air as his main combo breaker.

However, his character is quite polarized. Though he is strong on-stage, he is weak off-stage. His recovery is slow, and predictable, which means he could be edge-guarded, gimped, and spiked easily. He also lacks range, which means he is vulnerable to projectiles and characters with disjointed hitboxes. He relies heavily on his down throw to start combos and kill set-ups, so if characters stay away from Luigi's grab range, Luigi is quite useless.

Overall, Luigi is a black-and-white character. His powerful combos and various kill options make him powerful on the stage, but his sub par recovery off-stage makes it easy to kill him early.

Changes from SSBWU/3DS

Attributes

Luigi has a new dashing animation akin to how he runs in Luigi's Mansion.

Luigi’s Poltergust has been updated to reference its appearance in Luigi’s Mansion 3.

Ground Attacks

Forward tilt has an altered animation and is less laggy as a result.

Up tilt is now an uppercut instead of an overhead swipe.

Down tilt is less laggy.

Dash attack is much better and could kill at high percents.

Aerial Attacks

Back air has significantly less knockback.

Grabs and Throws

Luigi now has an extended grab in which he utilizes the new Poltergust from Luigi’s Mansion 3. However, it is incapable of tethering to ledges.

Special Attacks

Green Missile has an altered charging animation and Luigi now spins when the move misfires.

Super Jump Punch travels much more vertical distance and has significantly less landing lag. Additionally, Fire Jump Punch now displays a dramatic slow motion effect when it connects.

A vortex now forms around Luigi when performing Luigi Cyclone and Luigi can’t recover vertically if a player mashes.

Up Taunt: Rapidly switches between five different expressions. The first is Luigi facing toward the screen with his legs apart and left hand on his hip, giving a peace sign while having a deadpan look on his face. The second has Luigi looking scared while hunched over and pointing to the left. The third has Luigi at a three quarter view toward the screen to the right, standing with his legs apart and bent, while rubbing his nose. The fourth has Luigi crouched at a three quarter view away from the camera to the right, with his arms laying on his knees. The fifth and final one has Luigi strike a pose similar to the box art of Luigi's Mansion.

Side Taunt: Luigi does a plank, then somehow comes back upright while making a noise that sounds like "pow pow".

Down Taunt: Dejectedly kicks the ground (this taunt will deal 2% damage and powerful set knockback if it connects and is a spike on aerial opponents).

On-Screen Appearance

Luigi jumps out of a pipe, with both hands on his head, saying unenthusiastically "Let's a go."

Idle Poses

Scratches his nose.

Scratches the back of his head.

Victory Poses

Luigi goes into an angled position and falls down, teleports back up and does it again. After that, twitches his nose.

Performs his dash attack animation to both sides and then catches his breath.

Turns around, does finger guns with both his hands and then spins his hands around in a circular motion, still in a finger gun.

Trivia

Upon the release of the trailer for Simon and Richter Belmont, Luigi received a rather tongue-in-cheek outpouring of grief and mourning from fans toward his unfortunate "demise" in the trailer, where the plumber has his soul slashed out of his body by Death. The event itself was reported by several news websites including the BBC, though Nintendo UK eventually reported on Twitter that Luigi was "okay".